September 19, 1926: The San Siro Opens

September 19, 1926: Nuovo Stadio Calcistico San Siro -- San Siro New Football Stadium -- opens in the San Siro section of Milan, Italy, about 3 miles west of the center of town. Unlike most sports stadiums in Europe at the time, it was designed specifically for soccer -- known in Italy as "calcio," not a variation of "football" -- without a running track.

The 1st match is a Milan Derby -- or Derby della Madonnina, as Milan is known as "The Madonna's City" -- and Internazionale Milano defeats Associazione Calcio Milan, 6-3. A full house of 35,000 attends.

A.C. Milan, known as simply Milan for short, and as the Rossoneri for their shirts of red and black stripes, have played their home games there ever since. Inter Milan, or just Inter, known as the Nerazzurri for their shirts of black and blue stripes, began playing home games there in 1947.

Expansions were undertaken in 1935 and 1955. In 1987, a renovation began to prepare the stadium for the 1990 World Cup. A minor renovation was undertaken in 2015-16. Current capacity is 75,817, making it the largest stadium in Italy, as well as the most famous.

The stadium hosted 3 games of the 1934 World Cup, which Italy won, as they did in France in 1938, in large part due to Giuseppe Meazza, the Milan-born Inter striker. He died in 1979. The following year, the stadium was officially renamed Stadio Giuseppe Meazza. But it is still called "The San Siro" around the world, and it has surpassed the Duomo as Milan's most famous building.

Since moving in, both Milan teams have been remarkably successful. AC Milan have won 19 league titles, 16 of them in Italy's Serie A since moving in: 1951, 1955, 1957, 1959, 1962, 1968, 1979, 1988, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2004, 2011 and 2022. They have won the Coppa Italia 5 times: 1967, 1972, 1973, 1977 and 2003 -- although they've never won "The Double," the league and the cup in the same season. They've won the European Cup/UEFA Champions League 7 times, 2nd only to Real Madrid: 1963, 1969, 1989, 1990, 1994, 2003 and 2007.

Inter have also won 19 titles, with both Milan teams tied for 2nd among Italian teams behind Juventus. They've won 14 since moving into the San Siro: 1953, 1954, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1971, 1980, 1989, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2021. They've won the Coppa Italia 8 times, 7 since moving in: 1978, 1982, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2011 and 2022. This means they've won 2 Doubles, in 2006 and 2010. And they've won the European Cup/Champions League 3 times: Back-to-back titles in 1964 and 1965, and in 2010, making them the 1st, and still the only, Italian team to win a "European Treble."

(UPDATE: Inter won the Coppa Italia again in 2023 and 2026, and Serie A again in 2024 and 2026.) 

The 1960s was the golden age of Italian soccer, with both Milan teams practicing "catenaccio," meaning "padlock," a supreme defensive strategy. Between them, Milan and "Il Grande Inter" won 4 European Cups, and Inter lost 1 other Final, in 7 seasons.

Milan's fans sit in the Curva Sud, the south end; Inter's in the Curva Nord, the north end. Unlike such other Italian rivalries as Roma-Lazio and Juventus-Torino, this rivalry tends to be mostly talk, and violence is rare.

The San Siro hosted 3 games of UEFA Euro 1980, 6 games of the 1990 World Cup, and 4 Finals of the European Cup: 1965, 1970, 2001 and 2016.

By a coincidence that I, as a fan of theirs, have enjoyed, North London team Arsenal F.C. became the 1st British team to beat each of the hosts at the San Siro, both in Champions League play: Inter in 2003, and AC Milan in 2008.

In 2019, a plan to build a new 70,000-seat stadium next door, to be used by both teams, was put forward, intended to be ready for the 2022-23 season. As of September 19, 2022, construction has not yet begun.

UPDATE: It has been announced that the San Siro will also host the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will be divided between Milan and 1956 hosts Cortina d'Ampezzo. In 2023, AC Milan announced plans for a separate stadium, next to their club headquarters in the city's southern suburbs. This would have left the new San Siro to be home to Inter only. This plan also fell through.

In 2025, the two clubs announced an agreement on a new stadium, adjacent to the current one. Construction is set to begin in late 2027.

*

September 19, 1926 was a Sunday. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Duke Snider was born. So was Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-3 at League Park in Cleveland. Babe Ruth went 2-for-4 with a home run, a walk, and 2 RBIs. Lou Gehrig went 4-for-5 with a home run and 4 RBIs. Tris Speaker, also the Indians' manager, went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The New York Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-5 at the Polo Grounds. Bill Terry went 0-for-4. Frankie Frisch went 1-for-4. Rogers Hornsby, also the Cardinals' manager, went 1-for-3 with 2 walks and an RBI.

The Cardinals went on to beat the Yankees in the World Series. After the season, each having worn out their welcome with team management, Frisch and Hornsby were traded for each other. Hornsby wore out his welcome with the Giants in only 1 year, and was traded again; Frisch became not just a bigger star in St. Louis, but the manager.

* The Brooklyn Robins (as the Dodgers were known while Wilbert Robinson managed them from 1914 to 1931) lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-4 at Ebbets Field. Paul Waner went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs. He was a rookie then, and his brother Lloyd came up the next season. Zack Wheat only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 8-7 at Navin Field (later Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Walter Johnson only lasted 6 innings, although he was not the losing pitcher. The Senators scored 3 in the top of the 9th to bail him out. But in the bottom of the 9th, Ty Cobb, also the Tigers' manager, singled home Johnny Neun and Heinie Manush to win it.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-4 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Ken Williams hit a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 10th, to score Gene Robertson with the winning run.

* Because professional sports on Sunday was still illegal in the Commonwealths of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, the Boston Braves, who were at home, had the day off, having finished a home series with the Chicago Cubs the day before, and starting a new one with the Cincinnati Reds the next day.

* Likewise, the Philadelphia Phillies had finished one with the Cardinals on Saturday the 18th, and started one with the Pirates on Monday the 20th.

And the NFL season opened, with these 4 games:

* The Chicago Cardinals beat the Columbus Tigers, 14-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Chicago Bears beat the Milwaukee Badgers, 10-7 at Borchert Field in Milwaukee.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Panthers, 21-0 at City Stadium in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

* And the Duluth Eskimos beat the Kansas City Cowboys, 7-0 at Athletic Park in Duluth, Minnesota.

May 27, 1964: Il Grande Inter

May 27, 1964: F.C. Internazionale Milano, a.k.a. Inter Milan, defeat Real Madrid 3-1 at the Praterstadion in Vienna, Austria, and win the European Cup for the first time.

The Nerazzurri (Black & Blues), also known as La Grande Inter, were managed by Italo-Argentine Helenio Herrera. They were led by 2 goals from midfielder Sandro Mazzola, possibly the best player in club history, and the son of Valentino Mazzola, one of the leaders of the great Torino team that was killed in the Superga air disaster of 1949.

Inter succeeded their intra-city rivals, AC Milan, as Champions of Europe. Milan had won the 1963 edition with a tight defense, but Inter's was even better. The style became known as "catenaccio," meaning "padlock." With Giuliani Sarti in goal, Tarcisio Burgnich at right back, Giacinto Facchetti at left back, Carl Tragnin as a defensive midfielder, Aristide Guarneri at centerback, and Armando Picchi as sweeper and Captain, it might have been the best defense the world had ever seen to that point.

Built in 1931, the Praterstadion was renamed

the Ernst-Happel-Stadion in 1992.

The offense was also sensational. Mazzola was in central midfield, along with Spaniard Luis Suárez. No relation to the later Uruguayan star known for his diving and his biting of opponents, this one had previously starred for FC Barcelona. They were bracketed by Brazilian right wing Jair da Costa and Italian left wing Mario Corso, who was nicknamed "Mandrake the Magician" and "God's Left Foot." Up top was forward Aurelio Milani.

May 27, 1965, 1 year later to the day: Inter won the European Cup Final on home soil, at the San Siro in Milan, defeating S.L. Benfica of Lisbon, Portugal 1-0. Brazilian star Jair da Costa scored the only goal, despite Benfica having the great Mozambican player Eusébio.

The San Siro, as it would have appeared in 1965

They won Serie A, the Italian national league, again in 1966, and again in 1971. But they then went into a terrible decline, made all the worse by the glories of their San Siro housemates and the team both of them loved to hate, Turin's Juventus. Inter would only win 2 of the next 24 Serie A titles, in 1980 and 1989, and that 1980 title was largely seen as aided by a scandal that got AC Milan temporarily relegated to Serie B. Inter had won the Coppa Italia, Italy's version of the FA Cup, in 1939, but they didn't win it again, not even in their Grande Inter years, until 1978, then again in 1982, and then not again for another 23 years.

They reached the European Cup Final again in 1967, but were unable to make it 3 out of 4 titles, as they lost to Glasgow Celtic. They made it again in 1972, but lost to AFC Ajax of Amsterdam, the stodginess of Catenaccio defeated by the creativity and joy of Total Football. They won the UEFA Cup, European soccer's secondary tournament, in 1991, 1994 and 1998, but it wasn't the same thing.

AC Milan fans, Juventus fans, fans of pretty much every club in Italy, including those who, themselves, never or rarely won began to taunt them with a chant: "Non vincerai mai!" (You never win.) It would take the arrival of Jose Mourinho before they once again won the Coppa Italia in 2005, won 5 straight Serie A titles starting in 2006, and won the rebranded European Cup, the UEFA Champions League, as part of the first-ever "European Treble" won by an Italian team, in 2010.

*

May 27, 1964 was a Wednesday. Talk show host Adam Carolla was born.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-2 at Yankee Stadium. Al Downing went the distance for the win. Roger Maris and Clete Boyer hit home runs. Mickey Mantle was rested, since it was a day game after a night game.

* The New York Mets lost to the Chicago Cubs, 7-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks went 3-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Washington Senators beat the Boston Red Sox, 9-8 at Fenway Park in Boston. Dick Phillips singled Jim King home with the winning run in the top of the 11th inning. The Senators got home runs from former Yankee Bill "Moose" Skowron and Chuck Hinton. Dick Stuart hit 2 home runs, and "Dr. Strangeglove" did not make an error at 1st base. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-5 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Al Kaline hit a home run. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-5.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Art Mahaffey pitched a 4-hit shutout. Roberto Clemente went 0-for-4.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 1-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Joe Nuxhall pitched a 6-hit shutout, outpitching Sandy Koufax. Frank Robinson went 0-for-1 with 2 walks. Pete Rose went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Houston Colt .45s, 2-0 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Hank Fischer pitched a 4-hit shutout. Hank Aaron went 0-for-3. The Colts became the Houston Astros the next year.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-1 at the 1st Busch Stadium (formerly the last Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis. Juan Marichal allowed 7 hits, but no walks, and struck out 11, outpitching Bob Gibson. Willie Mays went 0-for-3. Willie McCovey went 0-for-4. Duke Snider, running out the string with, of all teams, the Giants, hit his 405th career home run. He would hit just 2 more.

* A doubleheader was split at Dodger Stadium, where the Los Angeles Angels were groundsharing with the Dodgers until their Anaheim stadium could open. The Angels won the opener, 4-1. The Minnesota Twins won the nightcap, 4-3. Don Mincher won it with a home run in the top of the 13th inning. Over the 2 games, Harmon Killebrew went 3-for-8 with a solo home run.

* And the Chicago White Sox and the Kansas City Athletics were rained out at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 13. The ChiSox won the opener, 8-6. The A's won the nightcap, 8-7. Wayne Causey singled Dick Green home with the winning run in the bottom of the 9th.

May 22, 1963: The Triumph of "Catenaccio"

May 22, 1963: The European Cup Final, the championship game of European soccer, is held at the old Wembley Stadium in London. This was the 1st year that Wembley had its familiar roof going all the way around the stadium.

Benfica, of Lisbon, Portugal, had won the last 2 titles, and were back for an attempt at a 3rd. They are known as Os Encarnados for their red shirts, As Águias for the eagle on their crest, and O Glorioso for their "glorious" success. Tapping into Portugal's African colonies, Benfica were led by Eusébio da Silva Ferreira, the Mozambique-born striker known as the Black Pearl. His quick-strike ability meant that, to put it in baseball terms, Benfica were always in scoring position.

Their opponents were Associazione Calcio Milan. (The Italian word for "soccer" is "calcio," rather than any variation on the word "football," like it is in most countries.) Known as the Rossoneri for their red-and-black-striped uniforms, A.C. Milan had lost the European Cup Final to Real Madrid in 1958. The year before, Fiorentina, of Florence, had lost to Real Madrid. So Milan were aiming to become the 1st Italian team to win the Cup.

Their manager, Nereo Rocco, had a tight defensive style. So did the team with whom they shared a stadium, the San Siro: Internazionale Milano, known as the Nerazzurri, for their shirts of blue and white stripes. Managed by Helenio Herrera, an Argentine of Italian descent, they were also one of the era's best defensive teams. The style became known as "catenaccio," meaning "padlock."

Each team had a sensational attacker: Milan with forward Gianni Rivera, and "Inter" with midfielder Sandro Mazzola. But it was the defense that defined each team, with Milan captained by centre-halfback Cesare Maldini (whose son, Paolo Maldini, would later star for them); and Il Grande Inter by fullbacks Tarcisio Brugnich and Giacinto Facchetti, and their sweeper and Captain, Armando Picchi.

The Milan clubs had come to dominate Italian soccer to the point that Gianni Brera, the Milan-based sportswriter who dominated Italian soccer coverage for the latter half of the 20th Century, liked to say that the ideal football match would end 0-0. (Brera, knowing that it would be professional suicide to say he supported either team, and not the other, claimed to be a Genoa fan.)

With Benfica wearing all red, Milan wore their "change strip" of all white. Eusébio scored in the 19th minute. Given the nature of Milan's play, this would seem to have locked Benfica in to victory. It didn't: José Altafini, a Brazilian of Italian descent, tied the game in the 58th, and gave Milan the lead in the 69th. Benfica never recovered from this dual assault, and Milan held the 2-1 lead until the final whistle.

Inter went on to win the next 2 European Cups, and lost the Final in 1967 and 1972. AC Milan won the European Cup again in 1969. Between them, they spread the word of catenaccio worldwide. It would take until the late 1980s, when AC Milan brought in Dutch players, before either team became known for attack rather than defense. The European Cup was renamed the UEFA Champions League in 1992. Milan have won it 7 times, Inter 3.

*

May 22, 1963 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Kansas City Athletics, 8-7 at Yankee Stadium. The Bronx Bombers scored 7 runs in the bottom of the 2nd inning, oddly without a home run. Bill Stafford took a shutout into the top of the 8th, then fell apart: Between them, Stafford, Marshall Bridges and Ralph Terry allowed 6 runs. Terry gave up a home run to future Met Ed Charles in the 9th.

Mickey Mantle led off the bottom of the 11th against Bill Fischer. He hit a rocket high into the night in right field. No player had ever hit a fair ball completely out of Yankee Stadium. Mantle had come close twice in 1956, both times to right field. He and Frank Howard had both come close to left field. Yogi Berra jumped out of his seat, and, thinking this one was going out, yelled, "My God, that's it!"

It wasn't it. The ball smashed into the frieze atop the roof, maybe 6 inches from the top, and rebounded all the way back to the infield. The spot it hit was 374 feet from home plate. Somebody suggested at the time that, had there been no obstruction, it would have gone 620 feet. Mantle later called it the hardest ball he ever hit, and it was the closest anybody ever came to hitting a fair ball out of Yankee Stadium. More importantly, it won the game, making a winning pitcher out of Steve Hamilton. I have a separate entry for this event.

* The New York Mets lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Duke Snider hit a home run for the Mets against his former team. But Tommy Davis and Frank Howard hit home runs in support of Don Drysdale.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Boston Red Sox, 3-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Harmon Killebrew went 1-for-5. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-4.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers, 2-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Steve Barber, proving that his arm was neither sore nor a little stiff (Ball Four reference), outpitched Jim Bunning. The Orioles' Brooks Robinson and the Tigers' Al Kaline, in his hometown, each went 1-for-3.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Washington Senators, 9-3 at District of Columbia Stadium in Washington. (D.C. Stadium would be renamed Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in 1969.)

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-6 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Angels led 6-0 going into the bottom of the 4th inning, and blew it. But in the top of the 11th inning, Gary Bell loaded the bases, and forced in the winning run by hitting Lee Thomas with a pitch. (Bell would later to be Barber's teammate on the 1969 Seattle Pilots, and a featured figure in Ball Four, since he roomed with the book's author, Jim Bouton.)

* The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-6 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Stan Musial, in his final season, went 3-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBI. Ernie Banks only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base. Lou Brock went 2-for-5 with a walk -- for the Cubs, as that epic trade had not yet been made. Ken Aspromonte singled Brock home with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Houston Colt .45s, 4-3 at Colt Stadium in Houston. The Colts took a 3-0 lead into the top of the 9th, and blew it, capped by a pinch-hit 2-RBI single by Roberto Clemente. The Colts became the Houston Astros in 1965.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Willie Mays went 2-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

* And the Milwaukee Braves and the Cincinnati Reds were postponed at Milwaukee County Stadium -- according to Baseball-Reference.com, due to cold weather. In late May. Anyway, it was rescheduled for July 29. The Braves won, 8-2. Warren Spahn went the distance for the win. Hank Aaron went 3-for-5 with a home run and 4 RBIs -- just another day at the office. Home runs were also hit by the Braves' Lee Maye (not to be confused with future Reds and Orioles star Lee May), and by the Reds' Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson.